My paper examines intellectual exchange between the early modern Ottoman and Mughal Empires, in particular the circulation of knowledge and the role of translation between Turkish, Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit. This paper questions the narrative of early modern knowledge flowing from Europe into Asia. Based on a comparative study of the manuscript libraries of the Ottoman and Mughal realms, with a particular focus on the former Mughal court library now held at the British Library as the “Delhi Collection,” I will argue the following: (1) The development of the Hanafi ‘ulum naqliyya (religious sciences), especially in the areas of grammatology and fiqh, from the 16th to the 18th centuries, the Ottomans and Mughals were engaged in a lively exchange of scholars and scholarship, which shaped the nature of education and the development of legal treatises in both the Ottoman and Mughal spheres. (2) Much of the transmission of scientific knowledge (in particular, mathematics and astronomy) in the early modern Mughal court did not involve input from Europe, but rather was a process of translation between Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. In comparative perspective, Ottoman mathematics and astronomy during this period also did not necessarily derive from ‘European’ science, but developed previous Arabic and Persian-language scholarship. When translations of European works did play a role in the development of Ottoman and Mughal science, my paper will address the complex diachronic processes of transmission that often built on earlier Arabic texts; specific translations will be discussed as an example of this phenomenon (for example, a previously unknown Arabic translation of mathematician Clavius’s work, made at the Mughal court under Aurangzeb: I.O. Islamic 1308, British Library). While the first part of my paper examines a direct process of exchange between Ottomans and Mughals in the arena of the ‘ulum naqliyya, the second half of my paper compares the Ottoman and Mughal approaches to mathematical and scientific knowledge and finds similarities in their approach to this material that assigns European scientific treatises a smaller role than current historiography allows in Ottoman and Mughal intellectual life. These two arguments will help to direct the scholarly gaze away from historical comparisons with Europe and toward the rich and lively scholarly exchange between Asian empires.